Media Detail
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National Aeronautics and Space Administration John F. Kennedy Space Center Kennedy Space Center, Florida 32899 FOR RELEASE: 04/01/2004 VIDEO NO: KSC-04-S-00130 |
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VIDEO CREDIT:
NASA or National Aeronautics and Space Administration
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| (NASA astronaut Janice Voss) I first got interested in the space program in sixth grade. I was on vacation with my family and I picked up a book called A Wrinkle in Time from a public library. I always loved to read when I was a child and I would check out a whole bunch of books whenever we went on vacation, and I was just fascinated by this book. It was the neatest thing I have ever read. I checked out the whole science fiction section when I got home, and I’ve been reading science fiction ever since. And it started about "I wonder if this is really done in some career on this planet?" So I started reading about space. This was in 1967-ish. We were right in the middle of the Apollo program. We hadn’t had a moon landing yet, but we were ramping up to that. So it was a really exciting time to be starting to listen to the information about the Space program in the news. As I listened, every time I would run into it I found it more and more interesting and exciting.
So, as I got into high school, it was natural to pursue engineering as a degree program, and again I would still, I would go visit places where astronauts were talking and I would listen to them speak and I always found it really fascinating. When I got to my undergraduate university, Purdue, they had this freshman engineering program where you listen to each of the departments present what their program was about, in case you want to pick a different major. And one of the departments that presented was a cooperative engineering program or Co-op Program. As the co-op director was making his presentation, my ears really perked up when he mentioned that one of the companies they co-op with was NASA. And this would be great. I could go down to NASA and see what they really do down there. So I did that, I signed up as a co-op student at Johnson Space center in Houston, Texas. I was working in their Shuttle Avionics Integration lab, writing the program that generated an environmental condition that they could send pretend shuttles through and understand how they would re-enter the atmosphere. Absolutely fascinating, I loved being in Houston. It was a great way of doing a little bit of work for a semester and then going back to school for a semester, and seeing how what you just learned in school translated what they were really doing for the Space program to help get the Space Shuttle ready for launch.
This was after the end of the Apollo program and right before the Space Shuttle’s first flight, so I was involved with the development of the Space Shuttle, which is absolutely fascinating. It really convinced me that I wanted to be in the space business. At this point, of course, I’m hoping to be an astronaut but its early enough that I can tell that even if I don’t get to be an astronaut there’s so many interesting things to do in the space business that, at this point, what I wanted to do as my fall back position was some kind of engineer in the space program, even if I couldn’t be an astronaut. So I went through my undergraduate program and my graduate program and I ended up doing a job for a year and a half as a trainer at Johnson Space Center. Working to train Space Shuttle Crews, this was right after the first group of Space Shuttle astronauts had arrived and I had written the entry guidance and navigation workbook to allow them to understand how the software works so they can safely fly back in entry profile. I got a chance to teach that class. I ended up going back to school for more education. I got a doctorate in Aerospace Engineering. I worked for a private company designing a launch vehicle for about two years. And then I got selected as an astronaut in 1990. It was a really moving experience for me. On my first flight we were allowed to bring two items of personal interest and I brought two science fiction books with me. One of them was Isaac Asimov’s Foundation, which was my very favorite science fiction book. So on my first flight, we had a little bit of down time towards the end of the flight. I was able to read that book by Earth light, which is Sun light reflected off the Earth. And here I am; science fiction is what started my interest and knowing all those years went by and all that work and it all closed and came together and I did reach my dream of being an astronaut. | |
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